This is not new news. We’ve known that since people first started scratching their proto-blogs on clay tablets.

However, yesterday’s article couched its message in stark numbers: 80 per cent of self published writers make less than £600 per year; 54 per cent of traditionally published authors earn as little; 43 per cent of writers published both self and traditionally published are in the same predicament. Described in these cold numbers the noble poverty of writers seems more real, scarier, and more pathetic.

There is no hard figure in the article for the writers who do make a living. Less than one per cent of self-published writers and less than 6 per cent of traditionally published writers make £60,000 or more.

Between £1,000 and £60,000 there’s a lot of space and a lot of people so we can’t draw any inferences about the number of people making a living wage. The 2009 edition of the Writer’s Handbook said that a massive 6 per cent of published writers actually made enough to live on (and this number doesn’t quite jibe with the Guardian’s numbers).

I suppose it is heartening that someone somewhere is making some money (but then you reflect on what the big sellers are and you feel somewhat less heartened).

While I was reading the Guardian article, with exquisitely evil timing, my computer went ping and an agent’s rejection of my current project King of the Undies World popped into my inbox.

Ho hum.

The Guardian article then went blandly on to say that the majority of writers don’t write for money, missing the point that we bloody well would if we could.

The markets for ebooks, self published books and traditionally published books are saturated and then some. Prices are falling, publishers are looking for gimmicks while making mystifying decisions in putting out fifty shades of utter rot, while big players in distribution, retail and publishing ― well, Amazon ― are remaking the markets in their own image.

My advice to fellow writers? Give up. All of you. Give up now. Withdraw the works you have out there. Get yourself a pot of tea and a good book to read. An example of a good book to read might be Weed or Un-Tall Tales. I’m going to plod on because I have no idea what to do if I don’t keep batting my own head on inconvenient reality.

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About chrispagefiction

Author of the novels Sanctioned, Weed, King of the Undies World, and The Underpants Tree; also the story collection Un-Tall Tales; editor, freelance writer and all that stuff. At heart he is a London person, but the rest of his body is a long-term exile in Osaka, Japan.

All opinions expressed on this site are those of the author and not uncritically regurgitated from the Daily Mail.

Sanctioned is the latest novel by Chris Page, published May 2017.

The first three chapters of Sanctioned ...

Paperback and ebook from Amazon or direct from the author.

Chris Page's paperback collection of short fiction

Weed, the novel by Chris Page, available in paperback and ebook. Click the image to find out more.

If you have read and enjoyed any of Chris Page’s books, would you consider giving it a rating or review on Amazon or Goodreads? Both sites offer a star rating system. Locate the novel on the site and click once to assign the rating. Simple as that. There is also a field in which you can write comments if you wish. Chris Page is a Goodreads author.

Weedy words of praise from a publisher in London

"... it’s really witty and very strong ... I would compare the writing to Robert Rankin, or a really satirically biting Tom Sharpe, and will say again that I’m really impressed by it"

Review copies of Weed and Un-Tall Tales

For review copies of the novel Weed or the collection of short fiction Un-Tall Tales, send me a message through the contact page.

Shorts, the collection of short fiction, odds, oddities and ends, by Chris Page. Click the image to find out more.